" Popular" as a noun is more common but it refers to party association where estadolibrista refers to political belief. Roughly analogous, though perhaps more tightly bound, to calling someone a Democrat and/or a progressive.

In theory one could be an estadolibrista (supporter of Commonwealth/Free Associated State status) and support the New Progressive Party, which identifies with statehood. Probably more likely is people who identify with the Populares (party) but support statehood. I know a couple people like that.

Both are pretty rare as both parties are very tightly identified with political status.

Both parties are dead set about continuing US citizenship.

I hope this helps.

BTW: Here are the title and the opening lines of the PR Constitution, emphasis added:

This is an interesting piece. I appreciated you sharing it. Two bones to pick:

1) You take a story on PROPOSED educational policy by one individual in France and use that to blanket an entire avocation --educators. Spare us from educators? I'm confident education is part of the solution (generally), not part of the problem.

2) You assume that content experts are necessarily good teachers....that learning how to teach is less important than content knowledge. Wrong. The measure of good teaching is NOT how much content you deliver. It's how much is learned (go ahead Meade.....use this as an avenue to grand stand about metrics).

Still a good piece though and certainly fodder for some interesting discussion.

johnfajardohenry wrote:Seriously, I don't know why you could not find it. I just tried and got almost 19,000 hits in Google.

Perhaps he couldn't find it because he searched for "Estadolibrististas", which was the term you used in your original post, as opposed to "estadolibrista", which is apparently the correct one. Accusing someone else of being foolish because of your mistake is kinda not cool, dude.

Bert Ernie wrote:1) You take a story on PROPOSED educational policy by one individual in France and use that to blanket an entire avocation --educators.

First, and a bit of a tangent, I find your use of avocation interesting here. Wikipedia defines it as:

"An avocation is an activity that one engages in as a hobby outside one's main occupation."

I do not think that is what you really meant.

In any event, the story from France mirrors something that has been going on in the US both formally and informally for at least a couple of years now.

It is not the only wrongheaded policy that educators (the policy makers/implementers. Not teachers) have been imposing on our schools for several decades. Another recent policy is the proposed implementation of student performance standards based on race. Another popular one is resegregation of schools by gender. The trend away from testing. Lots of others I could point out if you like.

I do agree with you that education is generally part of the solution. It is educators who are the problem. You will find no bigger advocate for education for everyone than myself. On the other hand, I strongly believe that the education system in the US is pretty well screwed.

Bert Ernie wrote:2) You assume that content experts are necessarily good teachers....that learning how to teach is less important than content knowledge. Wrong. The measure of good teaching is NOT how much content you deliver. It's how much is learned.

No, no, no and yes.

I do not assume that knowledge of content makes one a good teacher. I do believe, strongly, that absence of content knowledge will make one a bad teacher.

Think about universities, colleges, tech schools, professional development programs and so on. How many of these teachers have any pedagogical training at all? Some may have been to some faculty development sessions where they got a few hours of pointers, but that is not what I am talking about. Nor profs in teachers colleges and depts.

The first university class I ever taught, in 1974, I didn't even have any training as a student. I was most of the way to a 2 year degree. I was not only given no training, I was given only a rudimentary outline of what was to be covered and told to develop my own syllabus. (The course was Basic Refrigeration, for which I did have professional qualifications)

That was repeated 8 years later when I began teaching in the graduate program. In 22 years, the main guidelines I had in teaching were the catalog description and to give at least 1 exam per class.

My experience teaching at 4 different universities in 5 departments has been similar.

As you correctly point out, the goal is for the students to learn. It is unlikely you will find anyone in stronger agreement than me. One of the problems with K-12 education in the US is that the emphasis seems to be on how teachers teach. What degrees and training they have and so on.

One of the reasons I am so in favor of testing of all types is because it is only by testing the students can we tell if the students are learning.

One of the stunning things I found out when doing my ed degree was the trend in education away from testing of all types. Absent testing, teaching seems like bowling with a curtain across the alley. You roll the ball. You have no way of telling if it hit anything.

I liked the Finnish model we discussed a few weeks ago. A regular university degree, then a teaching degree on top. A bit much, perhaps, but at least they have the concept right.

John Henry

Still a good piece though and certainly fodder for some interesting discussion.[/quote]

johnfajardohenry wrote:The first university class I ever taught, in 1974

johnfajardohenry wrote:(The course was Basic Refrigeration

You taught a course on refrigeration at a University? Do you mean like maintenance?

johnfajardohenry wrote:A regular university degree, then a teaching degree on top.

What fucking planet do you live on. I know people who graduated from the Ed. program at the UW and this is EXACTLY what they did. They took a whole variety of courses and then focused on one discipline for which they then taught. This is effective for middle and high school, but for grade school you teach every subject and for that I feel like a degree in knowing HOW to teach is just as important and an expertise in something like, oh I don't know, refrigeration.

johnfajardohenry wrote:The first university class I ever taught, in 1974

johnfajardohenry wrote:(The course was Basic Refrigeration

You taught a course on refrigeration at a University? Do you mean like maintenance?

johnfajardohenry wrote:A regular university degree, then a teaching degree on top.

What fucking planet do you live on. I know people who graduated from the Ed. program at the UW and this is EXACTLY what they did. They took a whole variety of courses and then focused on one discipline for which they then taught. This is effective for middle and high school, but for grade school you teach every subject and for that I feel like a degree in knowing HOW to teach is just as important and an expertise in something like, oh I don't know, refrigeration.

There are doubtlessly different levels of content knowledge. But I think that even K-5 teachers need to be comfortable in the subjects that they teach, and show enthusiasm for those subjects. In my view, a large number, if not a majority, of K-5 teachers are weak in math and science.

Any liberally educated person should at least have an inkling of how a refrigerator works.

Stebben84 wrote:They took a whole variety of courses and then focused on one discipline for which they then taught.

Don't know the specifics of UW but I do know how it is in general, in the US (At least as of 8-10 years ago. Perhaps it has changed?).

Most math teachers, for example, study math in the education department rather than in the regular math dept (or history in the regular history dept etc). In these programs they focus on teaching math rather than on math. Far too many of the math teachers in the US are not really competent in math. Not all, of course. This puts them at a disadvantage since they do not really understand what they are talking about.

As for the lower grades, say K-6, I probably agree with you. The average HS grad should have enough subject knowledge at this level. I suspect many do not partly for the reasons I mentioned in the previous paragraph but they should have.

So, since they already have (or should have) the knowledge, the focus for these teaching positions should be more on pedagogy. But how much of this do they need? Does a 4th grade teacher really need 4 years of pedagogy? Seems to me that 2 years should be more than plenty. Perhaps in addition to a regular degree but more likely instead of a 4 yr degree.

WestSideYuppie wrote:But I think that even K-5 teachers need to be comfortable in the subjects that they teach, and show enthusiasm for those subjects.

Bingo. I think enthusiasm for teaching is critical. If you don't enjoy teaching, you are unlikely to be any good at it. More broadly, if you don't like whatever it is that you are doing, you are unlikely to be any good at it.

I think Zig Ziglar said "Find something that you enjoy doing so much that you would do it for free. Then get so good at it that people will pay you."

Not bad career advice whether one is 16 or 60.

Perhaps that is what BertErnie had in mind when he called teaching an "avocation"?

Any liberally educated person should at least have an inkling of how a refrigerator works.

Yes and I'll bet not one person in 10 in the US can even describe the refrigeration cycle in the most rudimentary terms. (Compress, condense, expand, evaporate, compress ....)

Back in the 50's and 60's it was hard for a guy to graduate from HS without having had at least a few semesters of shop class. How many high schools in the US even have shop classes these days? (Other than vocational schools, of course)